Midnight Plus One

by Gavin Lyall

  ‘Camberet or Lucan. It’s all on the bill, Cane. What are you going to do?’

  Take a long shot. Oh – and I’ve sent a couple of people up to see you. Look after them until I get back, will you?’

  ‘Damn you, Cane, I’m living in a hotel, not running one.’

  ‘One of them’s pretty.’

  There was a crackle on the line that might have been his aged chuckle. ‘All right, Cane. In ten minutes from’ – he paused, obviously looking at his watch – ‘now.’

  ‘Now,’ I said, and looked at my own watch. I hadn’t meant it to be as precise as this, but at least it gave me a timetable.

  I rang off and ran.

  Four minutes later I was telling the police sergeant that my problem was extremely important, highly confidential, remarkably delicate, and exceptionally urgent. That made it normal; he’d have thrown me out as a practical joker if I hadn’t said something like that.

  Which still left me with the problem of getting in to see Inspector Lucan – he was the one holding the fort, I’d learned – inside four minutes. I’d need the last two for softening him up before the General rang.

  But at least I knew that if Lucan was busy, it could only be on the Maganhard problem. It was Montreux’s slack time: mid-way between the ski tourists and the summer tourists, with no traffic troubles and, since there were no tourists to give them cover, none of the con men and jewel thieves who work the hotels in season.

  The sergeant sighed, picked up the phone, and asked me my name.

  I said:‘Robert griflet. SûretéNationale.’

  Lucan was a thin, neat man with a dark moustache, dark hair greased flat, and bright, beady eyes. He was naturally a brisk, suspicious man, but trying hard to be what he thought a Montreux inspector should be: slow, courteous, and inscrutable.

  I liked his phoney character best. If he got brisk and suspicious about Robert griflet, I wasn’t likely to have any choice about how I spent the next seven years.

  I dealt him my to-whom-it-may-concern letter and followed it up, horse, foot and guns. I wanted him on the defensive, in the hope he’d forget to ask for mycarte d’identité. The photograph of griflet was pretty old and didn’t look much like him now – but it looked a damn sight less like me.

  I understood he’d arrested Maganhard? Splendid. Could he find a couple of charges to hold him on, while my bosses at the Sûretémade up their minds to ask for extradition? I was sure they would – eventually, anyway. Well, probably.

  He frowned suspiciously at me, but went hastily back to looking inscrutable. Then he asked about the rape charge. Surely-I shook my head with what I hoped was a look of weary despair. We’d been trying to find the woman who’d laid the charge, and she seemed to have skipped. Which led one to suspect thatperhaps… and one couldn’t be too careful when arresting multi-millionaires, could one?

  He smiled, but only with his teeth. He knew all about being careful with multi-millionaires – any Montreux cop would. And he’d probably been getting the same song-and-dance from Maganhard for the past half hour.

  He asked me what I expected him to do?

  I sneaked a glance at my watch: if the General was on time, I had about fifty seconds left. I explained that I just wanted Maganhard kept on ice for a couple of days. Dream up a holding charge. What about illegal entry into Switzerland? – I could bet Maganhard didn’t have an entry stamp on his passport.

  He reminded me, coldly, that no court in Europe would take that as proof: too many frontier posts didn’t bother to stamp passports at all. And legally, Maganhard was a Swiss resident, which complicated matters.

  I got a bit huffy. Well, let him dream up his own charges. Hell, he’d done the arresting, not me. I presumed he hadsome reason for thatThe phone rang.

  He looked at it, then me, then picked it up and said:‘Lucan,’ Then:‘Ah, bonjour, mon Général…’

  I turned away in my seat and pretended I was pretending not to listen.

  At first, Lucan didn’t say much more thannon, a cautiousoui, and C’est possible. Then he asked who had said that Maganhard had been arrested?

  I gave up my pretence and hissed that he mustn’t tell anybody that he’d got Maganhard – that Maganhard’s lawyers must never know – that we’d both be ruined…

  He flicked a hand to keep me quiet, but perhaps he went a little pale. He ended up saying rather stiffly that he couldn’t say anything official I hoped the General had ended up saying that he was going to start spreading the news as from now.

  I demanded an explanation, and got a brief run-down on the General’s history, status, and prestige. I shrugged it off: obviously, he must go and arrest the General, as well. That should keep things quiet.

  He laughed in my face.

  I let Robert Griflet lose his temper and played my fifth ace: he, Lucan, would do as I said or I, Griflet, would bring down the wrath of the Republic of France on his head and squash him like a bed-bug. Montreux cops had better learn to jump when areal policeman from across the frontier said so, or By God…

  It was the one thing the real Griflet would never have done; Swiss officials blow up automatically at any hint of their big neighbours saying Or Else. Three minutes after they threw me out, they threw Maganhard after me. Whether it was mostly because Lucan was scared that he’d made an expensive mistake, or mostly to annoy me, I never asked and haven’t bothered to guess.

  I tailed Maganhard for a quarter of a mile to make sure nobody else did, then caught him up, and told him to head for room 510 – andnow part his damn hair differently. He did it without arguing. I took the taxi behind him.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  We ended up back in room 510.

  Harvey and Miss Jarman were already there, tucking into the champagne, and with coats off in that heat. The General was still in his fireside chair. Morgan raised his eyebrows at me as he let us in, but left it at that.

  Harvey stood up. ‘Christ, how did you do it?’

  ‘I just said Please.’

  ‘Well, I’m damned.’ Then he suddenly looked at the champagne glass in his hand.

  But I wasn’t worried – yet. For him, champagne would be about as strong as British beer. Still, it wasn’t a bad thing for him to remember that getting Maganhard back meant we were still in action.

  I turned back to introduce Maganhard to the General -but it looked as if they’d met. Maganhard was glaring down at the long, shrivelled face with a look as friendly as a welding torch.

  The General broke the ice: ‘I suppose you’re that damn fool Maganhard?’

  ‘Don’t mind the old-world courtesy,’ I reassured Maganhard. ‘He thinks the world’s divided into two: himself, and the damn fools.’

  Maganhard swung round on me. ‘Why did you involvethis man?’

  The General snorted. ‘Don’t like dealing with tradesmen, heh? I’ve done some good work for you in your short life. You and those damn fools Heiliger and Fiez. Don’t you think I give value?’

  ‘The information you supplied us with was valuable enough,’ Maganhard snapped. ‘Now I am wondering what value you will get from information about me.’

  ‘You could always buy it for yourself,’ the General suggested.

  I said quietly: ‘We did that deal already – remember, General?’

  He swivelled his head slowly towards me. ‘All right, Cane, I remember. Just thought it worth trying. The damn fool might have paid up. All damn fools, him and Max Heiliger and Fiez. Only sensible thought they had in their lives was that electronics was going to become big business after the war. Then they went off and started playing hole-in-the-corner with Liechtenstein registration and bearer shares and whatnot.’

  He picked up one of the pink cards, held up his pince-nez, and started reading: ‘Caspar AG. Formed 1950. Issued capital forty thousand Swiss francs.’ He turned to look at Maganhard. ‘Has to be above twenty-five thousand by law and if you go above fifty thousand you have to have a controller in. Wouldn’t like that, would you? Always wan
t to play secrets.’ He looked back at the card. ‘Controls thirteen companies in France, Germany, Austria…’

  Maganhard was giving me the steely glare. ‘Have you been talking about my business?’

  The General said calmly: ‘Most of that information is on file at the Public Registry in Liechtenstein. I know the rest because it’s my business to know.’

  Maganhard hadn’t finished with me. ‘Why did you gethim involved? Now he will spread the news of us all over Europe.’

  ‘You mean there’s somebody who doesn’t know already?’

  That stopped him.

  The General chuckled. ‘Young man’s quite right, Maganhard. I couldn’t make a wooden centime out of you that way. Well, perhaps there’s other ways.’ The pale, half-hooded eyes swung at me. T suppose you got him out of jail because the Sûretéhasn’t asked for an arrest yet. What happens when they do ask for it?’

  I shrugged. It was going to come, all right – just as soon as the real Griflet borrowed a few francs and got on the phone to France. Well, the first thing to happen would be that Inspector Lucan had a heart attack. But the second thing… I shrugged again.

  ‘By then we’ll be on our way.’

  ‘You’re joining the damn fools, Cane. How d’you plan to do it?’

  ‘I think we’ll classify that Secret, General.’

  ‘Now I’m sure you’re a damn fool. D’you think I could sell that? Nobody wants to know. They all know you’re going to Liechtenstein – and that’s enough.’ He lifted a glass of flat champagne, tucked it under his moustache, gave a long loudslurp, and put it carefully down again. ‘What d’you know about Liechtenstein, Cane? It’s a small country. Frontier with Switzerland’s only fifteen miles long. And d’you know what that frontier is? The Upper Rhine. And d’you know how many ways there are into Liechtenstein? Just six. Only six. Five bridges, and the south road through Maienfeld to Balzers. All they’ll need is eighteen policemen to watch that lot. They won’t waste hundreds of men trying to catch you before that. They’ll wait for you there.’

  There was a long silence.

  Then Harvey was on his feet, looking at me curiously from under his pale eyebrows. With his coat off, the gun at his belt looked very obvious.

  ‘I’ve never been to Liechtenstein,’ he said slowly. ‘Have you, Cane? Is he right?’

  ‘I’ve been there,’ I said. ‘And he’s right.’

  He twisted his head at me in a little, quizzical look. ‘You sound kind of calm about it. What had you figured to do about that frontier, anyway?’

  I shrugged. ‘If we hadn’t stirred up any fuss, we’d have whistled across. Normally, those bridges aren’t even watched.’ No customs, no guards – nothing. For customs purposes, Liechtenstein’s part of Switzerland, so they just don’t bother with that frontier: the real one comes between Austria and Liechtenstein. And we couldn’t cross that without first crossing into Austria. I couldn’t see any point in doubling our problems.

  Harvey said: ‘So they can close the bridges. What about the south road? Can we get up close, then get off the road and walk across?’

  At the southern end of Liechtenstein, Switzerland stretches across the river, so we could cross the river down there without meeting a frontier post. But then there was only the one road, heading north into Liechtenstein.

  I shook my head. ‘It’s a fortified zone. The road’s the only way through.’

  Just there, the valley narrows down to about a mile wide, between sheer mountain walls. This is the St Luzisteig Pass, a natural defensive position against an invader driving south up the Rhine. Personally, I can’t see why any invader would come up the river: all he’d capture in the end would be the ski resorts at St Moritz and Klosters, and I’d have thought the prices they charged there were defence enough.

  But for all that, they’ve spent nearly two centuries fortifying the St Luzisteig, right up to the Liechtenstein frontier. Most of the old stonework is just grassy humps by now, but some time in the ‘thirties they added what looks like a film set for the First World War. Trenches, pillboxes, dragons-teeth tank traps, gun and mortar pits. And barbed wire: hedges of great rusty barbed wire coils. The whole zone a mile wide and several hundred yards deep: a huge cork rammed tight into the bottleneck of the valley.

  Harvey was still watching me, still with the curious look on his face. ‘You know, Cane – this might have been something worth planning for.’

  I nodded. ‘I thought about that. The trouble was, I couldn’t think of any plans.’

  ‘Christ.’ He looked down at his empty champagne glass. ‘I could use a drink.’ He looked up at Morgan. ‘Have you got anything stronger?’

  I said: ‘Stick to champagne for the moment.’

  He said: ‘Youstill sound calm about it.’

  ‘Of course. The General’s got a plan. He’s going to sell it to us.’

  After a little while the General said: ‘Have I, Cane?’

  ‘Oh yes. You haven’t made any money out of us yet, General. And it was you brought this problem up. Yes, you’ve got a plan.’

  ‘Ah.’ He gave a gentle sigh. ‘Perhaps I have. But can you afford it, heh?’

  I shrugged. ‘That’s up to Mr Maganhard. Still – he knows Liechtenstein. He knows the problems.’

  I looked sideways at Maganhard. He was staring down at the General with a look that suggested he was prepared to bid about two pfennigs – and stick there.

  I said quickly: ‘I think we need this plan. But you can make most of the payment on results – it may not work, after all.’

  He got the iron filings back into his voice and said: ‘I agreed to pay you a certain amount to get me to Liechtenstein. Now-‘

  ‘And expenses,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. The expenses are more expensive than I had estimated,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘We have crashed one of my cars; my yacht is in custody in Brest, my luggage is somewhere in France, and now you want-‘

  ‘Sure,’ I said soothingly. ‘It’s getting to be hardly worth your ten million quids’-worth of Caspar, isn’t it? I’d just jack the whole thing in and catch a train down to Como for a few days’ holiday.’

  He gave me the steely stare. ‘Do we need this plan? Have you no ideas of your own?’

  I spread my hands. ‘I’ve got a few. And we can try them if you say so. But they won’t be as good as the General’s.’ I was just trying to keep down his price. I wanted his plan, all right.

  Maganhard swung round on the old man by the fire. ‘All right. How much? I will pay you one-third now.’

  The General said: ‘Ten thousand francs. And half now.’

  Maganhard said: ‘Five thousand and I will give you half.’

  ‘Ten thousand. But I’ll take one-third.’

  ‘I’ll pay you one-third of seven. What plan is it?’

  ‘A damn good plan. I’ll take a third of nine.’

  I said: ‘Give him a third of seven and a half.’

  The General said: ‘I’ll take a half of six.’

  Maganhard said quickly: ‘Right. Three thousand now and the same if we get through.’

  The General’s head moved in a fractional nod; he closed his eyes and sighed. ‘I’m getting old. All right, Maganhard. Give me a cheque on one of your Swiss banks, and make it cash. Sergeant! I want the file on the Upper Rhine.’

  Morgan stumped off into the next room. Maganhard hauled a sheaf of cheque-books out of an inside pocket, and started sorting through them. ‘Geneva?’ he asked. The General nodded again, and Maganhard started writing the cheque.

  Harvey was looking at me curiously. I winked at him, and he turned away and stared out of the window down across the grey windswept lake.

  Morgan came back with a green folder, and the General started sorting through it. Finally, he came up with a large sheet folded double. He opened it, stared at it, then carefully tore a corner off it.

  Maganhard finished writing the cheque and dropped it on the General’s table. The General gave him the pap
er in exchange.

  ‘Show that to Cane. He may make some sense of it.’

  For a moment it seemed unlikely. It was a large photostat of a drawing: a number of wavering, curling lines, overlaid by hard geometric lines: zigzags, rows of little triangles, lines with crosses every half inch. And wandering across the whole thing was one red ink line.

  I stared at it. Then it snapped into place: a plan of the modern St Luzisteig defences. The wavery lines were the contours, the geometric ones the trenches, barbed wire, tank traps. And the red line-The General said: ‘Well? D’you know what it is?’

  ‘I think so. We follow the red ink and find the end of the rainbow. Just whatis that?’

  ‘Patrol path. To let out the patrols.’

  I waggled my head and kept a slightly doubtful look on my face. ‘This plan’s probably twenty years out of date-‘

  ‘Damn fool. They haven’t changed those defences in twenty years. Why should they?’

  Maganhard was peering over my shoulder. ‘Is it worth anything?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘It’s genuine, all right. Why should he keep a faked one lying around? He’s probably had this on file since 1940, waiting for somebody to sell it to.’

  The General let out his rasping chuckle.

  Maganhard fingered the torn corner of the plan. ‘What did you tear off here?’

  ‘Name of the man I got it from,’ the General said.

  I folded the plan up and shoved it in a pocket. ‘Okay,’ I said briskly. ‘So we can get across once we’re there. But how do we get to the frontier?’

  He leant back in his chair with his eyes closed. ‘All in the same price. Morgan drives you there.’

  ‘Yes? And what’s so wonderful about that? I could hire a car down the road.’

  His eyes stayed closed. ‘And tell them exactly what car you’re in. They’ll check up on that first thing. But they’d never stopmy car. And they all know it.’